


Looking Back

by orphan_account



Category: Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Hurt/Comfort, Lyrium Addiction, M/M, Mages and Templars, Moving On, Resolved Sexual Tension, Side Story
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-02-09
Updated: 2015-02-09
Packaged: 2018-03-11 07:58:42
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,018
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3319952
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Aldous Trevelyan receives an unexpected letter from Ostwick with bad news, and Dorian is there to help him in his hour of need.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Looking Back

“Aldous Trevelyan?” the mage asks, “Of the Ostwick Circle?”

Aldous smiles at the man, which is partly a reflex action; it's been so long since anyone has called him by his actual name that it’s somewhat refreshing.  “Yes, in a previous life.  I’m afraid I don’t know you, serah.”  The man just looks at him, then holds out a crumpled piece of parchment, stained and soft-looking, though still sealed. “He said I should give this to you if I got here.” His voice is bland, almost as if he might be Tranquil. “Said to tell you that the way is overgrown with crystal grace.  He said you’d know what that meant.”  The man turns abruptly and walks away, his travel stained robes swirling.  Aldous just stares, holding the parchment and feels his heartbeat quicken and his stomach pitch in sudden fear.  Suddenly he feels a hot hand on his shoulder and his skeleton near leaps out of his skin.  “What did that dirty thing want?” asks Dorian, and laughs, “Honestly, you southerners.  You need a good bath, the lot of you.  Oh, passing notes again, I see…?” He looks more carefully into the older mages face, and his expression changes. “Are you alright?  You look… well, not to be blunt, but you look as if you saw our lady Seeker naked on a dracolisk.”  Aldous struggles to maintain what composure remains to him, and finally stammers, “No.  I… can I… talk to you?  Upstairs?”

“Certainly.  Though, I can get Josephine, if you’d rather…”

He shakes his head.  Josie is the last he’d want to burden with this story, and part of him relishes having something to share with Dorian instead.  

 

Dorian whistles when they enter the Inquisitorial quarters.  “Look at this - it’s good to be the Inquisitor!  Makes me wish I hadn’t so readily given you up. Much better than my quarters, despite my improving touches.”  Aldous has crossed the room to his desk and now leans heavily on it, exhaling in a long breath.  He is so keyed up, so sick with guilt and frustration that after so many years he had finally received this letter that he barely hears Dorian’s glib remark.  He crushes the parchment again, then opens his fist, but cannot summon the nerve to break the seal.  He turns and passes the letter to Dorian, who takes it with a look of mingling interest and concern.  Aldous looks paler than usual, and almost as if he would throw up.  Dorian makes as if to open the seal, then stops, looking sharply up.  “Bad news?  Aldous, this letter… it feels too heavy.”  Aldous nods. “I thought so too.  Just… please read it to me?”

“Are you sure?”

Aldous clenches his jaw, looking steadily at Dorian, who finally breaks his gaze and opens the seal on the letter, noting the narrow sword and lines crest and the blue wax.  He begins to read,

> “A.
> 
> If it’s any consolation, I miss you terribly.  If this is to be my last chance to say farewell,
> 
> then so be it.  I haven’t much longer, but I cannot go to that long night without saying
> 
> how dreadfully sorry I am.  My love, my only love, know this; I remain, forever -
> 
>                     Yours, until the end,
> 
>                                                     E.”

 

Dorian folds the parchment and waits, looking at Aldous.  He is standing with his eyes closed and his hands clenched, swaying slightly.  The silence stretches and grows; this far up even the regular noises of Skyhold don’t penetrate the howl of the wind.  Dorian continues to wait, watching Aldous carefully.  He has a thousand questions, but he doesn’t dare to ask.  Suddenly, Aldous’ eyes fly open, at the same instant that his clenched fists erupt with lightning.  A massive shockwave which is his signature roils out of his hands and bursts with a crash and a pulse of raw energy against the wall.  Dorian acts instinctively, dropping the parchment and stepping forward, encircling the other mage in his arms.  He feels Aldous tense momentarily, resisting the embrace, his obvious rage lending him strength.  Then he sags against Dorian, supple as a reed.  Aldous' arms come up and he rests his hands against Dorian's shoulder blades.  Dorian cannot help but feel the residual charge in those cold hands, feel Aldous’ whole body pressed against his own.  They stand like this for what seems an age, then Dorian turns his head, planting three gentle kisses along the line of scar down Aldous’ cheek.  When he sees Aldous smile, he whispers, a little huskily, “I know some good ways to forget things.  The effect doesn't last forever, but who cares?” Aldous nods towards the bed, and his smile belies the desperation he feels.

 

Afterward, the smell of ozone and ash hanging in the air, they lie together silently.  Aldous has a strand of Dorian’s hair between his fingers and he twines it around his fingers as he thinks how to begin.  Dorian stirs and traces a sigil absentmindedly against the pale skin over his hipbone and he smiles, thinking that sometimes it’s better to start without thinking.  Nevertheless, he stumbles over his thoughts.  “His name is… was… Edwerd.  He and I… well, you read the letter.  Ostwick Circle was only bearable because of him.  I never told you, but when I reached the Circle I was so embittered with magic I honestly thought about throwing my Harrowing just to be made Tranquil; I couldn’t stand it anymore.  I know that you feel the burden of being an only child, but I honestly think that growing up the youngest, with three brothers ahead of you, knowing that they stand to inherit everything while you would have to struggle with being a Trevelyan,” he spits the name out “without any of the benefit is worse.”

Dorian sighs and mutters “I’ll wait to meet _your_ father before I agree to that.”

Aldous smiles gently at being chided in such a sleepy voice before continuing, “Anyway, I had made the mistake of being observed trying to look in on a mage who had failed their Harrowing before me being made Tranquil. Edwerd caught me.  He upbraided me for spying, as he put it, on a sacred rite.  I rebuffed him, saying it was merely for research, and he said that if I wanted to research Tranquility, maybe I should ask a Tranquil.  So I did. None of them remembered their Harrowing at all, and after talking to them properly, I slowly realised that it was a lonely and desperate way to live out my days.  I found Edwerd and thanked him.  We became friends… and…eventually...”

“More than friends?”

Aldous exhales, “Yes.  Strange enough to be friendly with a Templar…”

Dorian sits up, but it’s only to pull up the covers; he finds the chill in the room unbearable.  He huddles down again, on his side to face Aldous, the burgundy-dyed fur over his head, tucked under his chin.  “Strange indeed. Though I’m starting to notice a bit of a theme with your choices…”

Aldous smiles again, and turns his head to Dorian, who rolls his eyes but nods for him to continue, “This went on for years, through my Harrowing and the end of my apprenticeship.  He was one of the Templars on guard during the rite, and he confessed later he struggled to not reveal our relationship to his Knight-Commander before it took place.  Of course, it would have meant his expulsion from the Order, and even by that stage I was beginning to realise I might not have been as important to him as his next dose of lyrium.”

“He was addicted?  To lyrium?”

“Of course.  They all are, really.  Taking lyrium for them isn’t like it is for us, at least I never had any of the weird effects that Edwerd and Cullen have spoken of.”

“If you failed your Harrowing, do you think he would have…”

“Killed me?  Helped to make me Tranquil? Really Dorian, I’m not sure.  But I know from then it was always an apple of discord between us, and after the Circles began to disintegrate… well, it became worse.  He started stealing lyrium from other Templars, and had been censured by the Knight-Commander on two occasions.  He knew that if the Circles fell apart he would lose his supply, even if the situation became too unstable to support a constant flow of lyrium into Ostwick, he would go into withdrawal, maybe even die.  This was before the availability of red lyrium became so rampant.  Honestly, I’m glad that he’s out of that - the only thing I can be glad about in this mess.  At least he’s not…” He shudders at the thought of meeting Edwerd on the battlefield, his body distorted by red lyrium.  “He was just... too weak…” Aldous squeezes his hands shut again at the memory of the argument, the final argument that he’d had with his lover.  How Edwerd had raged at him, threatened him, how finally it had come to blows.  He touches the scar on his cheek, and grimaces at his unconscious gesture. He continues without looking at Dorian, “There was a copse of trees within the Chantry gardens that we used to go sometimes.  The Chantry was not well frequented, and the gardens were even thought to be haunted.  I used to take seeds from the crystal grace that grew in the hothouse gardens indoors and scatter them alongside the path when I would go to meet him… he used to laugh at me doing that, but I always liked the idea of something getting its freedom from the Circle.  But now that we are all free, we’re no better off.  He’s dying, and I’m still… trapped.”

Dorian reaches a hand out from under the covers, pulling himself closer to Aldous, kissing the tip of his shoulder.  “Aren’t we all?” he murmurs. “We’re busy making cages for ourselves.  I don’t think anyone would know what to do if we weren't pushing against something.  Aldous, do you mind if I give you some advice?”

Aldous turns his head again, looks at Dorian to see whether he’s serious.  When he sees that he is, he nods once, and a momentary flicker of bitterness crosses the younger man's face before he says,  “Learn to love the cage. It’s easier, in the long run.  I have escaped the prison of my father's expectations, only to be taken prisoner by my own.  Gild it, own your cage, whatever you need to do, but learn to operate from within it, or… you will go mad. Trust me.”

 

 ++++

 

The silence between them continues as the daylight wanes.  The light in the room fades to a pale violet gloaming as the winter sun slides beneath the mountains.  Dorian rises first, his reddish skin goose-bumping in the frigid air.  He does not look at Aldous as he dresses, lacing breeches and buckling his half-harness without looking back.  When he sits to pull on his boots, Aldous sits up as well, leaning forward to touch the Tevene’s shoulder. Dorian moves his arm as if he is ridding himself of an insect, and Aldous draws his hand away.  He feels curiously bereft, unable to offer him comfort in his own struggles after he had been so comforted himself.  He wonders, not for the first time, how badly he has fallen in Dorian’s opinion after he judged Alexius so harshly. Dorian turns then, and must catch something in the look in Aldous’ face, because he smiles, though there is a strange gleam in his eyes as he does so.  “I don’t hate you.  I couldn’t hate you.  I just… Our burdens are not the same.  I don’t feel… akin to you.  But I do feel like a debt has been paid today.  You were there for me when I… when we went to Redcliffe.  You were honest with me, and you comforted me as much as I would let you at the time.  I am glad you let me do the same for you.”  With that, he turns and crosses the room to the stairs, not looking back.

**Author's Note:**

> I was always a bit sad that my male mage Inquisitor got all noble-minded and turned Alexius tranquil, and therefore slightly ruined any chances that he'd had with Dorian. So I wrote this as a bit of wish-fulfilment for me, but also to think about how very, very different the Tevinter attitude to magic is from the south. Plus, I love the thought of naughty little mage-templar romping (especially if said romping is done in the Chantry gardens). 
> 
> And, I think some of the details about the Harrowing are a bit erroneous, but if you won't tell, then I won't.
> 
> Any comments very greatly appreciated!


End file.
